REPORTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON
ECONOMIC SECURITY
The Committee on Economic Security (CES) was commissioned by President
Roosevelt and its research formed the basis of the legislative proposal
the President sent to Congress in January 1935. The material produced
by the CES was thus the blueprint for what would become the Social
Security Act. Indeed, it was the intellectual and academic case
for Social Security in America.

UNPUBLISHED REPORT ON HEALTH
INSURANCE OF THE 1935 COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC SECURITYThis report was part of the work of the Committee on Economic
Security but it was not included in the published documents, and
has, in fact, never before been published. It represents the work
of the CES on the issues of health insurance and disability benefits,
which were not ultimately included in the published reports because
FDR thought that their inclusion might jeopardize the Administration's
legislative proposal.

REPORT OF THE TECHNICAL
COMMITTEE ON MEDICAL CARE TO THE INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE TO
COORDINATE HEALTH AND WELFARE ACTIVITES
Following the conclusion of the CES' work in August 1935, President
Roosevelt desired to keep the topic of health care alive and so
he appointed an inter-agency group to coordinate a long-term study
of issues related to health and welfare. This group--the Interdepartmental
Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare--in turn appointed a
Technical Committee on Medical Care, which issued a report in February
1938. The first part of that report, entitled The Need For a National
Health Program, was released at the time, and that document is reproduced
here.

ANNUAL TRUSTEES REPORTSEach year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare
Trust Funds issue a report of the current status and projected performance
of the funds for the short and long terms. These are the reports
on the Social Security Trust Funds. We are publishing here for the
first time anywhere the complete set of Trustees Reports all the
way back to the first report in 1941.

1988 PUBLIC TRUSTEES
SYMPOSIA ON THE BUILD-UP OF THE TRUST FUNDS
In 1988, the two Public Trustees managing the Social Security and
Medicare Trust Funds convened two symposia of experts in the field
to discuss the implications of the rapid build-up in the assets
of the Trust Funds following the financing changes of the 1983 Amendments.
A portion of the materials from these two symposia are now available
here.

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION
ON SOCIAL SECURITY (1981)
The National Commission on Social Security was created by Congress
in December 1977 and was instructed to undertake a "fundamental,
long-term, comprehensive consideration for change in the entire
Social Security system." This was the first time that a Commission
composed entirely of private citizens has been chartered by Congress
to do such a study. The nine-member bipartisan Commission issued
its final report in March 1981.

FULL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION
ON SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM [GREENSPAN COMMISSION] (1983)
This report formed the basis of the 1983 Amendments to the Social
Security Act. Many features of the current program have their origins
in this report, including: taxation of benefits; coverage of federal
employees; increase in the age for full retirement from 65 to 67;
and the build-up of a large Trust Fund reserve to partially pre-fund
the retirement of the baby-boomer generation.

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL RESOURCES
PLANNING BOARD (1942)
In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt tasked a small federal agency--the
National Resources Planning Board--with crafting a blueprint for
the future direction of the nation's domestic social welfare programs
(including Social Security). This report, published in early 1943,
is a classic in the documentation of the development of America's
social welare programs.

REPORTS ON INDEPENDENT AGENCY ISSUE
(1981-1994)
The Social Security Administration became an independent agency
again as a result of legislation in 1994. This collection of materials
documents the development of the issue of independence for SSA.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND HISTORY OF THE
POVERTY THRESHOLDS
In the late 1960s an SSA employee named Mollie Orshansky devised
a methodology to measure poverty. Her ideas became the basis of
the official federal poverty measure in use ever since. This article
by Gordon Fisher recounts the history and development of the federal
poverty measure and the role Mollie Orshansky played in its development.

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